Sterilized surgical dressing



. 3 UNITED STATES PATENT: OFFICE."

DARIUS SMITH, oFsYRAoUsE, NEW YORK.

STERILIZED SURGICAL DRESSING.

SPEGIFIGATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 617,474, dated January 10, 1899.

Application filed February 1897. Serial No. 623,449. (No specimens.)

To all whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, DARIUS SMITH, of Syracuse, in the county of Onondaga, in the State I of New York, have invented new and useful Improvements in Surgical Dressing, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

The object of my present invention is to provide a marketable sterilized surgical dress-' ing for surgeons, hospitals, private use, die, in which the deterioration, when not in use, is effectually prevented and the danger of inoculating diseases to patients treated with said dressing is avoided.

Heretofore surgical dressing has been put up in glass or porcelain jars or in wooden boxes, and was thus exposed to the air when said jars or boxes were opened for use, and even when the said dressing was sterilised before being placed in said jars or boxes the danger of inoculating diseases was not excluded, as the said dressing was liable to become impure when being exposed to the air.

The most essential feature of my said invention is to sterilize the dressing, together with the receptacle containing the same, and to construct said receptacle of compressible material-=sucl1 as lead or analogous ductile and impervious metal-=with a very small discharge-opening, so as to be able to easily handle said receptacle and dressing and to regulate the quantity desired and necessary for immediate use.

For the above purpose the dressing is put into the well-known paint-tubes, and after the air has been expelled from the interior of said tubes the latter are closed hermetically and are subjected to any well-known sterilin' ing process. r

The preferred alloys used in the manufac- 4o ture of my compressible tubes are, lead, one per cent. 5 copper, one-fourth of one per cent;, and tin or, aluminium, one-eighth of one per cent. lead, one=fourthof one per cent. ,and tin.

By proceeding in the manner above stated The dressing is readily accessible and the desired quantity can easily be obtained by compressing the lower end of the tube without unduly exposing to the air that part of the dressing which is contained in the tube.

I do not claim a dressing put up in compressible tubes. Neither do I make any claim on the process of sterilizing dressing which is not contained within a tube of this kind, as neither of them would be within the spirit of my invention and would furnish a dressing of the character above referred to; but

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

As a new article of manufacture sterilized surgical dressing put up in compressible hermetically-sealed sterilized ductile and imper vious metal tubes, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto" signed my name this 11th day of February,

DARIUS SMITH. [L. s] Witnesses: I

J. J. LAASS, M. A. LEYDEN. 

